


Full in the Sight of Paradise

by viceindustrious



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: Character Death, Illness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-18
Updated: 2011-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-20 12:32:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceindustrious/pseuds/viceindustrious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blackwood survives his last confrontation with Holmes. Coward escapes Parliament. And what comes after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full in the Sight of Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot thank unsettledink enough for giving me what was possibly the Raddest Pep Talk Ever when I was floundering with this.

"It's only for a little while," Blackwood says.

Coward wraps his arms around himself and sniffs in the cold and damp, scuffs the sole of his shoe across the uneven warp of the floor. There are gaps between the boards, dirt caked in their crevasses.

Outside, a thin, birdlike woman had been scrubbing the front step. Rag of a cloth clutched in her small, pink hands. Coward had laughed as they stepped past her. He can't understand why, why bother trying to clean anything? This rotten little house on this rotten little street, it's like trying to polish up a fallen apple.

Beside him Blackwood is kicking off his shoes, blocking the weak winter's light as he passes by the window. It's small, that window, narrow and set high up above the bed in the tiny basement room they've rented but the ceiling is low enough that Blackwood's profile is still caught like a cameo as he moves in front of it.

Coward's gaze comes to rest there. Again. He exhales. _Again_. Every glance, every breath, has been coloured with that precious thought. That it's happening again, that is _can_ happen again. Reassured for the time being, he allows his eyes to wander, catalouging the room as Blackwood begins to strip out of his wet clothes.

There's a sort of morbid fascination to it, isn't there? Four shillings and sixpence their new landlord had asked for and then blinked at them, owlish and suspicious when Coward had pressed the five pound note into his hand. _For your silence too, you understand?_ A bowing, scraping shade that Coward has already forgotten the face of.

"Of course," he murmurs, off hand.

Blackwood snorts, he thinks Coward's sulking, that his silence is a show of how appalled he is to have been brought to such a place. Filthy, decrepit and far, far from the eyes of their enemies. But Coward is smiling at the mould flowering in one corner of the ceiling. Well, that could almost be rococo, couldn't it? He is cocooned against all this unpleasantness and he can only see what's fascinating in that organic pattern of decay.  

If he's silent it's only because he'd been, at first, so busy giving voiceless thanks to providence. Later, seething with a vicious kind of joy that although they'd had the temerity to attempt it, Blackwood had not been defeated. Fallen, but not lost. Now he's simply trying to forget that horrible instant before Blackwood had untangled himself from the chain and dove into the river.

He looks at Blackwood. Again. Turns to consider the dusty, iron grate. They'll need a fire. Candles too and fresh clothes for Henry. Supper. No doubt they can pay one of the other tenants to attend to such things. How much do candles cost?

Blackwood places a hand on his shoulder and Coward covers it with his own. He turns and Blackwood kisses his forehead, pushes his hair back from his face with fingers still covered in icy leather.

"Let me," Coward says, tugging Blackwood's gloves off.

He holds Blackwood's hands between his own and breathes on them, rubbing colour back into his skin.

He should be quicker to get Blackwood out of his things, but Coward finds himself lingering. His hands stall after he slips open the first button of Henry's waistcoat and then steal upwards to press palms against his heartbeat.

"Daniel?"

"I thought-" he begins.

Blackwood's brow furrows and Coward gives a laugh that's half choked by the ache in his throat.

"I thought you were going to..."

He clenches his jaw, mouth turned down in the corners and lips pressed tight together. Blackwood pulls him into an embrace and Coward's laughter gets all mixed up with the tears he can no longer blink back. Salt water, river water, he feels like he's the one who's been saved from drowning.

"Never," Blackwood says.

Coward grasps at the sodden weight of Blackwood's shirt, grabs onto the fierce weight of that word in Blackwood's mouth. He'll use it to sink the image of Henry falling from the bridge, to bury the look on Henry's face in Parliament before he'd turned on his heel and left, deep down where he'll never have to see it again. 

"I want Holmes," Coward says.

He pulls back and looks Blackwood in the eye, tugging on the collar of his shirt.

"Once this is fixed. You'll give him to me, won't you, Henry?"

He brings Blackwood toward him, nuzzles against his cheek. He wants to feel the shape of Henry's acquiescence, the movement of his teeth when he says yes.

"I'll make him suffer for you," Coward promises.

He can feel the warmth of his own breath, of his vow, skating the marble of Henry's skin. Grime and silt from the Thames is caught under his nails from where his hands are twisting in Henry's clothes.

"So very well, so slow-"

Blackwood kisses the rest of the sentiment from his mouth so it goes unspoken but not unheard, voiced in one long moan instead. Kisses him like a reward, like he's done something to be proud of. Coward's thumbs slide into Henry's collar, hover at the unblemished column of his throat. They tremble there, afraid to touch.

"My own," Blackwood says and frames his face with his cold hands.

Coward sniffs and smiles so wide it makes his cheeks ache, like the ache in his throat, the lump he swallows down.

"It's a shame about the coat," he says.

"It would have dragged me to the bottom of the blasted river."

Coward can see it, a dark shape amongst other dark shapes, drifting down into the black, silt filling its pockets. Blessedly empty. He takes a deep breath, Henry still smells of the murky, muddy water of the Thames.

"Still," he says, running his hands over the broad set of Blackwood's shoulders and laughing, a little hiccup of relief. "It suited you beautifully. You know exactly how long it took me to find that tailor."

"I know exactly how much you enjoy fussing over those things. Now you get to do it all over again."

Coward looks up and smiles and Blackwood's shoulders drop a little under his hands as though some tension has suddenly been stolen from them.

"It won't be the same," he says, as he finishes stripping Blackwood of his waistcoat. One of the buttons comes away in his hands, drops to the floor and disappears between the floorboards.

"No," Blackwood says. "It will be better."

-

Coward pays a girl to fetch candles, to fetch coal, to find fresh clothes for Blackwood. They're not new, but they'll have to do for now. The candles give off a greasy kind of smoke that obscures the details of the room and disguise the threads that are unravelling at Blackwood's cuffs. The fire is licking more ash onto the hearth, flakes of shadow.

The girl's hands had been streaked with coal dust when she'd snatched the money from him. Pitiable, Coward thought, wiping his hands on his trousers. Poverty is a terrible sickness and there's something naturally offensive about seeing its symptoms in others. It makes Coward want to bathe, but of course, there's no water laid on down here.

They don't get to bed until the early dawn.

Half of it is Coward's reticence to lay down on that thin, misshapen mattress, suspect with stains. He refuses to even think about what creatures must be living in it.

And then there's Blackwood. Henry strides back and forth, restless and alive and brilliant and Coward's weariness is burnt away in watching him. As the night grows old, they are still making plans. Talking about what they must do and what they can do, how they can turn this failure to their advantage.

It's more restorative to the soul to hear Blackwood talking like that, more refreshing than sleep. Coward catches his wrist as he makes a gesture and then Henry will pull him close and murmur some half formed vision into his ear. They step together and step apart, a dance in duple meter, caught in the unreal flicker of firelight.

Blackwood gives him his vision and Coward conjures up the framework piecemeal, half drawn architectural sketches. They build up towers of Babel and then tear them down, start anew, consider the world of possibilities open to them.

First light finds them laying together, Blackwood stroking Coward's hair and Coward decides he'd doesn't mind the narrow little bed so much. The pauses between their words stretch out, their voices grow hushed and their talk drifts away from the how and into the when. Blackwood says there will be no slums like this one they have dominion over Britannia.

Coward lays his head on Blackwood's chest and stares up at the ceiling, picturing the ragged city streets they're nestled in the heart of. The end of the century finds London rotting, dying but Blackwood is explaining how they will save her and Coward believes it all. He listens to the sleep slowing Henry's speech and murmurs agreement.

He's not sure when sleep takes him. He's telling Blackwood a bed time story about how they'll destroy each and every sorry soul who ever raised a hand to stop them. They'll light beacons across England to herald their supremacy, bonfires built with the still breathing bodies of their enemies. The fire in the grate laps up the coal the same way it lapped up Standish. The fire in Blackwood's eyes is the same fire one finds in a diamond of great quality.

When he does sleep, he dreams about fire. About burning things away and starting fresh.

-

In the morning Blackwood has a fever.

The windows are thick with grime but they let enough light in, which to say, they let too much in. Coward wakes with sleep sticking in the corners of his eyes and a sluggish weight hanging on his limbs, groggy, as though he'd been drinking last night.

They'd both been drunk, hadn't they? With relief, with excitement, spurred by the sting of failure and the blank, tempting vista of the future. So like the nights they'd spent together when they'd first met.

"Morning," Blackwood mumbles.

Coward shuffles his body, pressing his back against the bare brick wall and pulling Blackwood toward him so that he doesn't fall off the bed.

"Not exactly how I pictured we'd be greeting our new dawn," Coward says and kisses Blackwood, slow and lazy, still half asleep.

Blackwood hums laughter against his mouth and Coward puts a hand on his chest to feel the noise purring there. The bed creaks as Henry shifts to close the sliver of space left between them. Coward sighs and stretches out his legs, toes curling, ready to tuck himself back into Blackwood's warmth and drift for a little while longer.

Blackwood swallows, then winces. He puts his hand to his forehead and shuts his eyes, eyebrows draw together to mark out a line of pain above his nose.

"Henry?" Coward props himself up onto one elbow.

Blackwood shakes his head, waves his other hand in the air like it's nothing. Coward frowns and touches Blackwood's forehead. It's terribly warm.

"Do you feel all right?"

"I'm fine."

Coward glance around their room, so devoid of comforts, feeling unsettled. There's no one to call for tea. The fireplace is empty, full of miserable cinders. Things look different this morning. Unbecoming in their clarity, the white paint peeling leprously from the walls. He doesn't want to touch his feet to the rough, cold boards. Wants to stay curled up next to Henry until...

But there is no until. For all their talk, the future is a yawning uncertainty. There's a baby crying somewhere in the house above them. Coward's not sure if it's been crying for the whole time, the noise is muffled, gets lost in the creaking of the bed every time they move.

"Perhaps you should rest today," Coward says. "Yesterday was-"

"I'm _fine_ ," Blackwood snaps, pushing Coward's hand away and swinging his legs off the side of the bed.

Coward flinches and hugs the tattered bedclothes to his chest. They smell faintly of mildew. He hadn't noticed that last night. Blackwood gets to his feet, sways and then sits back down heavily, making the bed shake and groan in protest.

"Henry?" Coward kneels up, alarmed and puts his hands on Blackwood's shoulders, pulling him back toward him.

"It's just a headache," Blackwood says, but allows himself to be embraced. Doesn't try to get up again.

 _You're burning up_ , Coward doesn't say. He just nods against the nape of Blackwood's neck and holds him more tightly.

"Well, don't be foolhardy," he teases, forcing a levity into his words that he doesn't truly feel. "I'll fetch breakfast, shall I?"

-

Coward tucks the bedsheets over Blackwood, threadbare and unseemly as they are and tells him to rest. Blackwood smiles at him like he's indulging some ridiculous whim.

They've two rooms. This one with its bed, its fireplace, its collection of three, rickety wooden chairs. There's a chest of drawers too, that Coward had opened up to to create a makeshift clotheshorse for Blackwood's wet things. The room feels crowded enough with this little furniture, it can't be more than twelve foot square.

Their other room is smaller still. A kitchen of sorts, although judging by the stale breadcrumbs in the dresser drawers, it was no good for keeping food. There's no larder and the cupboards are all missing their doors. No stove either, which has Coward truly perplexed until he realizes, with a sense of wonder that is quite detached from his reality, that  the grate in the other room must be meant for cooking on.

He does find a kettle and a saucepan, the bottom of the latter so badly burnt that even he doubts its usefulness. There's a ragged piece of cork on the floor and Coward finds himself caught, staring at its fraying edges, irritated by the sheer pointlessness of the thing.

Something scrabbles across one of the shelves. When he looks up there's a rat sitting there, lean and insolent, watching him.

-

He kisses Henry before he leaves and swipes his thumb across the perspiration dotting his forehead so it vanishes. There. All better.

Outside, an English Winter has already sunk its teeth into the city. There are ten days left in November but autumn has long since fled, only the mulch of dead leaf litter remains, obliterated from red and gold to grey by feet and hooves and carriage wheels.

The streets here are narrow and serpentine, unfamiliar buildings looming up out of the smog like blank headstones. Coward has never had much cause to venture into Whitechapel before. As he passes down one alley and into the next, he feels a growing sense of unease, as if the ragged creatures shouldering past are watching him. Those greedy, jealous eyes are the only bright thing about them and they remind him of the rat, unintelligent and grasping, but perhaps with the animal sense to sniff out a stranger amongst their number.

He needs food, some little creature comforts maybe. Something to cheer Blackwood's spirits. That's all he's really sickening for, Coward decides, sleep and something in his stomach. It was silly for them to stay up all night like that.

He finds himself amidst a wasteland of public houses. There are women in sackcloth aprons hurrying by, but from where and to where? Some have children in their arms, some are carrying parcels. Coward doesn't know the price of a pound of potatoes or what he'd do with them if he did. He wants to find a fruit stall, but there's nothing so colourful is sight. Frost slicks the cobblestones and his steps are wary, he cannot understand the dialect in the pieces of conversation he catches.

At last he stumbles upon a butchers shop. There's a man in the window cutting out pastry lids for pies and when Coward pushes the door open the smell of old blood mixes with the rich scent of baking, sharp and buttery and warm.

There are rabbits, skinned, hanging up. The way their eyes bulge, rimless and blind, is too familiar. Poor, dead things. Poor little bodies. Behind the counter there are cuts of meat, offal and organs piled on top of each other. Coward could pick out the differences between a sheep's heart and a human's. Blood, though, blood smells the same.

"Sir?"

The man behind the counter is looking at him with a mixture of impatience and suspicion and Coward shakes himself out of the fugue.

"Two meat pies," he says, smiling. Decides, magnanimously, to add at the last second. "Please."

The shopkeeper continues to look at him oddly, Coward just keeps smiling until the man turns, slowly and starts to parcel up his food.

"Anything else, sir?"

Coward's smile is a frozen thing, his teeth locked tight together behind his lips. He doesn't like the way the shopkeeper says that word, _sir_. If Blackwood were here he could tell him if it was just his imagination or not. There are flies buzzing over the meat, batting into the glass of the windows. The ping ping sound is very loud, the streaks of yellow fat on the sheep's carcass they're taking off from are very bright, garish really.

"Sausages," he hears himself say.

They'll have to spend another night here, won't they? Just to be safe. Henry and he, cooking over an open fire. It won't be so bad. Like being a boy again, even, running from his nanny when it was time to wash up and getting into places he shouldn't and not caring about what he ought to be doing as the young master Coward.

He picks up an ounce of fat, a quart of milk, half a dozen eggs. A basket to carry them in. Half an ounce of tea, two ounce of sugar, a newspaper. These triumphs are so tiny, measured out in their meagre increments, nothing to change the world. Coward pictures himself stirring the milk into Blackwood's tea and feels a glow of accomplishment as bracing as the winter air.

When he arrives back at their street, the same woman who was scrubbing the steps when they first arrived is standing in the road. There's a small child clinging to her skirts. It's too young, (or perhaps, too tiny, skinny and malnourished) to tell the sex. Coward averts his gaze from those large, dark eyes. Huge in a face that's all skull, skin stretched tight over bone. He has a terrible fear that she may try and say something to him, that she may even nod an acknowledgement.

The child sticks its tongue out at him. A wet piece of meat. Coward can't stop the sickening thought, why hasn't it bitten off that little morsel to feed it's withering body?

-

"I return from the abyss!" Coward calls, shutting the door behind him and taking the steps down two at a time.

He bites his lip, guilty for the noise, when his eyes fall on Blackwood. He's asleep on his side, one arm tucked under his head. His feet are sticking out from the covers, almost off the end of the bed entirely. Coward steps carefully, sets the bag down on one of the chairs as though he's performing some delicate bit of surgery.

The stale air makes his nose tickle and fills him with a sudden pang of home sickness, sharp and strange. He thinks of all the rooms he and Henry have shared before this. Places Holmes must never have seen, for each held the signs of a thousand little intimacies. His shoes would hardly have been the crowning revelation of his involvement with Blackwood then. How easy it had been to roll his eyes at the detective, brandishing his scrapbook knowledge of their grand design as though it meant anything.

It still seems impossible that he could have hurt them so badly while understanding so very little. Such a disappointment. Even someone as brilliant as Holmes was as blinkered as the rest of those fools in his own fashion.

There are ice crystals on the inside of the windows, crept in like thieves while he was away. Coward pulls off his coat and lays it down on the bed over Blackwood. He slips off his shoes and then put his own socks over Blackwood's feet. The fever is still blazing on his forehead but his toes are freezing.

He has to sweep out the grate with his hands. Coward lets the ash fall between the cracks in the floorboards, down to join whatever dirt is already lurking below. By the end he's almost as filthy as the hearth, his skin feels thick with it and there's a grey glow of cold that's worked its way into the bones of his knuckles.

Getting his hands dirty. He's never minded that, these things don't stick to him. Some people have souls like chalk but Coward likes getting dirty when he knows he can be rinsed clean again and lose nothing of himself to the crumble of guilt or doubt. When Blackwood can wash him clean with soap and water and affirmations.

This is wearisome, miserable work though. When the fire finally catches and heat begins to spill out to fill the room it drags the air down with it, stuffy and close. Coward streaks soot through his hair as he pushes it back from his face and sits back on his heels, warming his fingers near the flame.

He sits with the newspaper resting in his lap for a long time before he opens it, fingering the feather thin edges of its pages, the rough cut the printing press has made through this paper and a thousand others like it. Papers folded under arms and rustled in armchairs and left on end tables all over the city.

Naturally they've made the headline.

They use his title just once, in reference to the fact that is has been stripped from him and all the rest is The Criminal Coward and witless puns on his surname that sting more than he would have expected.

Reading it is like trying to pull himself through a thicket of brambles. He would like to be quick but the words catch at him, tug him back to unpick himself over and over again. There are so many names he recognizes, members of the Order who have come forward to denounce them, members of the Carlton Club, members of his own _family_.

Blackwood had not quite explained the extent to which Holmes has unravelled their plans. Hadn't told him just how thoroughly their scheme had been picked apart, its skeleton left bare and gleaming but the paper has laid it out like an autopsy in ugly words. Turned their vision into something vile and tawdry. Something it was not.

Coward twists the paper between his hands, ink blearing underneath his damp fingers and smudging the type into insensibility. His palms are sweating, clammy. They've been through his office, into his home. Everything is gone.

He throws the paper into the fire with a sudden, violent jerk. Gone. He watches as it burns up, paper destroyed along with those words, those lies, along with everything else he has ever worked for. How can his _life_ be as fragile as _paper_?

There's a shift in Blackwood's breathing. Coward turns as Henry props himself up against the headboard.

A scrap of newspaper floats onto the hearth. Henry is wiping sleep from his eyes, plucking at the collar of his poor quality shirt as though he can't remember how it got there but it's certainly offending him.

Coward stubs out the cinder with his bare heel. A lot has been lost. Nothing important. 

-

Blackwood insists on getting out of bed for lunch and they eat with their hands in front of the fire, pastry flaking onto their knees. Henry says he's feeling better, although Coward catches him wincing every so often and rubbing at the back of his head.

He's eating though and that's enough to give Coward his own appetite back. The pie isn't too bad and it's quite easy to ignore the occasional crunch of gristle while Henry is looking over his other purchases with amusement. Turning over the little packet of sugar in his hands and then touching the side of Coward's face with an absent, tender gesture.

Coward decides not to mention the newspaper.

That night they sleep twined about each other like two serpents. Coward frets at first over what would be best for Blackwood's fever but Henry will hear none of it and simply draws him closer. He says he will be sicker if Coward is away from him. He smiles, just a little, and says he will not rest.

Coward cannot argue that his own sleep is any easier without the beat of Blackwood's heart pressed close to his own.

-

Dawn comes with the whisper of Blackwood's breath skating his cheek. There will be so much to do today, so many decisions to make, things to discuss. Coward wants to dawdle in this comfortable nest for just a little while longer, so he rolls over, pulling Blackwood's arm around his waist.

The air on his cheek is wrong.

It's too cool. The mattress is damp but not just with the warm humidity of two bodies lying within each other's arms. Not just damp but tacky and then it hits his senses all at once, the wetness on his check, the stickiness on his skin, that _smell_.

He could sleep in a slaughterhouse and still dream sweet dreams.

The sheets are crimson. There is blood everywhere, but blackest in the furrow between them where they've weighed down the flimsy mattress and oh, down the front of Blackwood's shirt and over his mouth, so dark there's no red in it.

Coward stares and the scream is too big to even escape his throat. He grabs Blackwood, shakes him.

Henry groans and blinks blearily at him and Coward can breathe again, even if it feels like his lungs have been crushed to half size. He kneels up, hands shaking as he touches the bedclothes, touches the front of Blackwood's shirt. He doesn't know what he's doing, if he's trying to wipe away the blood or cover it from his sight or find some proof that he's still asleep and this is just a nightmare.

"I'm getting a doctor," he says.

He doesn't know if Blackwood hears him. Coward throws the bedsheets off the both of them, frantic. He pulls the bloody pillow out from under Henry's head and tosses it as far as he can into the corner of the room. Just a nose bleed, he can see that, but there are clots of blood on Blackwood's skin and he looks so pale beneath that mocking gloss of crimson and black.

"Can you breath?" he asks, jumping out of bed and rushing over to the kettle. He pulls the cover from the pillow case and scrunches it up into a ball, pours what's left of yesterday's water onto it. His mind is stuck in a mire of horror, unsynchronized from his body which is moving in quick, useless jerks. Half of it spills on the floor, more spills onto him.

He scrapes from his knees as he dashes to kneel next to Blackwood and wash the blood from his face. His hands are trembling with the effort to keep his touch light when he just wants it gone and scrubbed out of existence, pinching his bottom lip between his teeth as he dabs at Henry's skin.

Blackwood reaches out and takes his wrist. "What's wrong?"

His voice sounds parched, hoarse. Coward looks down at the sodden pillowcase in his hand, at the gore stained front of Blackwood's shirt.

"Henry," he says, quietly. "You're sick. You're sick, I need to fetch a doctor."

"No," Blackwood hisses, tightening his grip.

Coward won't meet his eyes. "A real doctor. You know. Not some back alley quack."

"Daniel, I forbid it."

Blackwood's grip is not strong. He's frowning, blinking over and over as though it's hard for him to focus his eyes. Coward could pull his wrist away, but he doesn't. He stares at the pink blotching below Henry's nose, smeared across his mouth and chin like a port wine stain and shudders.

"Don't give me an order I cannot obey, I beg you, Henry, please."

Blackwood draws in a breath that rattles like it's hard won and Coward swallows, but no argument comes, just a dreadful, knocking cough. Coward screws his eyes up tight and shakes his head, willing with all his might that, no, no this isn't happening.

When he leans in he can feel the heat coming off Blackwood's forehead. This close he can see the spark of the fever in Henry's eyes, the illness lighting those pretty eyes up. Henry was never pleased to hear them called that, but they are, Coward won't hear otherwise. They _still_ are, but with that awful, too bright glassiness that sickness brings.

"You're a myth to these people," he pleads. "They don't even think of you as a man, not really. We created the idea of Lord Blackwood, that's who they're looking for. They won't see him here. And I'll...I'll shave, although I doubt I'd be recognized at any rate."

Blackwood doesn't argue. It's a cold sort of comfort. Coward can't help but think that something must be wrong indeed for Henry to give in so quickly.

-

It had taken a very long time to grow out his beard. Once it's gone, Coward is struck with the memory of just how hard it had been to be taken seriously when he'd first come to the Cabinet, young enough to raise eyebrows as it was. He looks younger than that now, years shaved off and washed away in a tide of soap and hair.

Not that he has to worry about the respect of his peers now, he thinks wryly, but this time travel is strange. Coward touches his chin, watching his fingers follow the half unfamiliar shape of his jaw in the little piece of glass he'd bought; along with clean sheets, more coal, the razor itself.

The money is dwindling but he forgets about that when he puts away his wallet. It slips from his mind, unlike the picture of Blackwood laying there, covered in blood.

Coward raises the glass to catch his own gaze. The lines around his eyes are fine and apart from that, have they changed at all? He thinks not. If souls can be peered at through eyes. His soul is not made of chalk. There is something hard, impermeable at his core. He beholds this younger version of himself and wonders, if it were really possible to go back, what advice would he give himself?

Don't be afraid of your father, you'll be a greater man than him some day. Never be ashamed of those things that you know you desire. Find Henry Blackwood as soon as you can, for the world will make so much more sense.

Nothing that would set him on a different path to the one he has made for himself, the one he's made with Blackwood. Coward blinks slowly and smiles at himself, the curve of his mouth so naked now that he's clean shaven. Perhaps it would be something as simple as: do not underestimate self-satisfied little detectives.

-

The doctor peers over his spectacles at Blackwood, pulls them off and wipes at the lenses with a bit of cloth. The gesture seems affected to Coward, painfully middle class. He keeps making these _noises_ that Coward supposes are meant to indicate a mind at work but which sound more like he's got something caught in the back of his throat. It makes his fingers itch to choke the man and relieve him of his problem.

"Well?" he asks, tersely, when he can bear it no more.

The doctor straightens up and props his spectacles back onto the tip of his nose. Blackwood is worse than he was yesterday, worse than when Coward left him this morning. It smells like a sickroom and Coward spares the windows an agitated look but he can't air the place out, can't risk letting the cold in for one and the air's no good here at any rate. It's drizzling outside, the wind is smoggy and bitter.

"He has a fever," the doctor says.

Coward's head snaps back, nostrils flared. He takes a step toward the doctor and the doctor stumbles back, his face turning as pale as the milk that's spoiling on top of the dresser.

"Don't frighten the man," Blackwood chides.

A weak smile has broken through the lines of fatigue painted on Henry's face. Coward exhales slowly and wipes his hands on the front of his waistcoat, something to keep them from curling into fists. He gives a little nod, but he can't bring himself to smile back.

That's something else he could tell his younger self maybe. One day Daniel, you will be able to inspire fear with a look. You will know, and they will sense, just how much you are capable of. There's a price of course, but it's worth it.

-

The doctor has nothing more useful to say after that. It's a fever, but what does that mean? He's reluctant to make a judgement, it could be so many things. Only time will tell. Keep him warm, keep him fed, have patience. As for the nose bleed, well the bleeding has stopped now hasn't it and there's nothing more he can say on that.

The things he doesn't say are more important. He can't put a name to what's ailing Blackwood, but that' s fine, they've been thriving on uncertainty for long enough and they always come off the better for it. He doesn't say, _now that's peculiar I could_ swear _I've seen you before_. When Henry forgets himself and calls Coward darling in that manner of his that's only half tongue in cheek, he might have thrown them a tight lipped look of disapproval but he kept his thoughts to himself. Fortunately for him.

Coward counts out his fee, which is less than he'd spend on wine in a single meal and worth his peace of mind but he finds, after the doctor has gone and Henry is sleeping and he's left alone with the dim clamour of footsteps from the room above, that there's barely anything left over.

Six shillings and six pence. Coward stares at the lonely pile of coins cupped in his palm. How did that happen?

He puts the money away and makes a cup of tea. He forgets, until he's staring down at the murky brown water, that the milk's no good any more. He would like to forget, for a little while longer, that six shillings and six pence is all he has and all there is and that his name is worthless now, his reputation summed up to a noose around his neck.

-

The first thing to go is his pocket watch.

There's a pawnbroker around the corner on Bell Lane. It strikes him as a pretty, lying sort of name. He could hear the bright, resonating clarity of Big Ben's chimes from his old office. Here the walls are black, the windows are matt with grime and as opaque as the dour faces shuffling by.

Their own lodgings are on Flower and Dean Street and there are no flowers there. Flower _girls_ , perhaps. Coward has to stop and count backwards to try and recall how long they've been there now. Struggles to work out just how long Henry has been ill for. Six days? Or is it seven? It seems meaningless to try and break it down into hours or days. Hope can spin forever out of a single minute, watching Blackwood's fitful sleep and holding his breath every time he wakes, this time, _this time_ , the fever will have broken.

There's a pawnbroker on Bell lane but that's not where his watch goes.

Their landlord comes to see him on the seventh day. Coward doesn't recognize him at first, he'd been a convenience at the time, hardly a person. Certainly not important enough tor remember.

Now Coward notices things. The man's clothes are cleaner than his own. His teeth are worse. His voice has that grating, gutter rasp of a servant but he holds himself like a lord.

He looks Coward in the eye, unashamed, when he asks for more money.

In the kitchen, the green tiling on the walls makes them both look jaundiced. Coward can see the sickly, chartreuse shine on his hands when he pushes the door closed.

"I gave you enough to keep these rooms for the better part of a _year_ ," he hisses.

The man gives him a pitying look. Coward grits his teeth and looks away, embarrassed. But of course, why point out things they both know? It's not a mistake he would have made before. He understands this game. It's exactly the same kind of conniving greed that Westminster prospers on.

"I don't recall," the landlord says.

Coward runs a hand through his hair, lank strands falling through his fingers and back over his eyes. He looks up at the cobwebs catching dust on the ceiling, the crack in the wall that's turned a furry sort of black.

"You'll have to wait on it," he says.

"No."

Coward freezes. His hand forms a fist at the back of his head, tugging at his own hair. He's standing in dirty clothes in a dirty kitchen with a rat who thinks he's a gentleman because he owns property. One word, no manners, no finesse.

"How dare you speak to me like that," Coward says and laughs, incredulous, furious, Adam's apple bobbing as he struggles to swallow down his anger.

There's a kind of smile that shows too many of your teeth, wide and simian. A smile that will give you laughter lines around your eyes, thin, little lines that mark the difference between who you were _then_ and who you are _now_. They are the same cheerful crinkles that show on your face when you narrow your eyes, just before you leap for someone's throat.

The landlord cringes and for an instant Coward can see his resolution faltering, can imagine him slinking off with his tail between his legs like a whipped dog. 

But then it passes. The silence condemns him, Coward feels it keenly, the gaps he cannot fill. A botched act of magic, an invocation lacking the right words of power; his name, his birthright, his position. The landlord must feel it too. He seems to shake himself and then looks Coward up and down from his shoes to his collar and his lip curls.

"You'll pay me or I'll have you and your friend out on your ear, you understand that, your highness?"

"I don't have anything," Coward says.

The man cocks his head to the side and raises one shaggy eyebrow. The taste of black tea is lingering on the back of Cowards tongue, over sweetened but bitter all the same, like bile.

He pulls the watch out of his pocket.

"Take it then."

The man has the gall to inspect it. He dangles the watch by its chain as though it will catch the light better that way even though he's standing in front of the window, casting his shadow forward onto the olive gold. He sucks his teeth and squints at it and Coward feels the prickling heat of a blush spread across the back of his neck. It's the most humiliating thing yet.

"All right," the landlord says.

Grudgingly, like he's doing him a great favour.

After he leaves, Coward paces up and down in the kitchen until the sun is too low to light up the tiles. His eyes adjust to the slow rise of twilight but the crack in the wall looks darker, thicker than before.

-

The pawnbroker has a small side entrance like a brothel, even here people want to save face and the windows are so packed with goods that Coward can't see inside. He dawdles in the street, peering thoughtfully though the glass as though he's there to buy inside of sell.

There's not enough room behind the window for the real prices, the stories tied to each sad item. There's a stuffed bear with its nose pressed up to the glass and Coward scowls at it. The romance of the image is deceptive. These people sell the shoes off their children's feet for gin money and it's not pitiable, it's not tragic, it's abominable. They've no one to blame for their wretched lot other than themselves.

People make their own destinies, Coward is sure of that. If there's a tale worth telling here it will be a short chapter in the story of how Blackwood and he came to rule England.

He's said his goodbyes to his gun already, passed fond fingers along the barrel and parcelled it up with everything else. He exchanges his James Taylor shoes for a pair of third or fourth hand boots and makes a profit on that. His shirt, his gloves, his coat.

The clothes he's replaced his old things with don't work so well against the cold and there's a hole in one of his new shoes that lets the muddy water of the street in. All the same, Coward finds himself wandering the long way back to their rooms.

His shirt is stiff with the sweat of another man. He smells like them, looks like them, these beggars and thieves lounging on their doorsteps. The wind slaps at his face, making his eyes water. He feels as though he's been skinned, bleeding where no one can see. It's almost the same as when Blackwood cuts him. The way the world seems to sudden light up with an inconceivable clarity, little details taking on sudden significance.

Coward turns into a long alley, transfixed by the way the sky is caught like a narrow stripe of paint between the crooked buildings that rise up on either side of him, then stops and leans back against the wall, tugging at the fraying end of his shirt sleeve. It's started to rain again but the shower is very fine, more like mist than anything. His fingers are turning pink and they sting a little when he places them against the rough brick to steady himself.

It's all so much like a bad dream. He wants, more than anything, to be able to lay down beside Henry and forget that a world exists outside of his arms but that frightens him too. It's hard, he can barely admit it to himself, it's hard to see Blackwood as he is right now.

But he can't breathe free out here either.

Coward doesn't notice the man until he's right upon him. He's watching a pigeon fluffing out its feathers, lost in the dirty orange of its eyes and he's stopped jumping at things that move in the corners of his vision besides. He's used to that now, sleepless nights that make his eyes play tricks on him, make him see things moving when they're not. Better not to look. The best he can hope to see are the shadows mocking him. Sometimes there are rats slinking bonelessly through the gaps in the floor.

"A florin," the stranger says.

Coward jumps.

The man repeats the three syllables and Coward stands tense, frowning, trying to work them into some kind of sense. He doesn't understand what the man is saying but he's wiry, more skin and bone than muscle and Coward thinks he could fight him. If it came to that.

The man advances and Coward holds his ground, the worst thing would be to step back. He thinks, _foolish not have made them throw in a blade along with the price they gave me for the gun_. He thinks, _what would Henry say if he knew I'd had my throat cut for two shillings?_

"C'mon lad, you can't say fairer than that."

Something in his tone gives Coward pause and he looks at the man again, pushing aside his panic which only allows him to see the hard edges, the threat of the stranger. Now he notices the hesitance of his steps, as though he's prepared to take two leaps back for every inch he makes forward. He wouldn't have classed the expression on the man's lips as a smile, but perhaps that's what it's trying to be. He looks bashful.

"I'm sorry, I can't help you," Coward says, uncertainly.

Because it's bound to be the truth, whatever it is he wants. As soon as the words leave his mouth the look on the other man's face changes, sours like Coward has just insulted him.

"Don't think you'll get more for putting on airs," he says.

"Pardon?"

"My money not good enough for you? Out here before the sun's even down, you must be hard up for it" the man says. He lays a weathered hand on Coward's bare cheek, his fingernails are thick and yellow and Coward is too startled to move. "Fuck, but you're a pretty one."

 _Oh_ , Coward thinks and something closes down inside him, throws a clean white cloth over the outrage and dismay and that one, stuttering spool of laughter, all clamouring for space in his head.

"You've mistaken me," he says.

He pushes past the man, rubbing his cheek with his shirt sleeve. The name of the street catches his eye, settling firmly in his mind and like lead in the pit of his stomach. Coward scrubs harder at his face, trying to exorcise the ghost of the touch as if the memory will fly away with it. He puts his hand into his pocket and clutches the coins there, forces them to slip through his fingers one by one like rosary beads.

-

Blackwood is awake when he returns, sitting up in bed. He starts to laugh when he sees Coward and Coward feels dizzy as though perhaps he's imagining this or Henry's fever has shifted into madness, but then:

"What _do_ you look like, Daniel," Blackwood says and pushes the covers back.

You can't see the blood on the mattress, but only because they turned it over. The stain is still there, lurking out of sight. The smell is mostly lost amidst the coal smoke and dank heat, but sometimes it surprises Coward when he turns his head at night and then it fills his mouth with the tang of iron.

Blackwood hasn't been eating much and his cheekbones show even more when he smiles like that. Still, he looks so carefree, so simply happy that Coward has to smile back. His hair is in a disarray from where he's been tossing and turning on the pillows, sticking up like the feathers of a fledgling.

Coward walks over before he can get out to greet him. 

"Don't exert yourself," he murmurs, putting his hand on Henry's head and cursing under his breath.

Blackwood makes a shushing noise and pulls Coward's hand down to his mouth, kissing his cold, pink knuckles. His eyes are bright but Coward doesn't trust that light any more. It makes no sense to him, but the fire of Henry's fever seems to burn with the self same glow that furnishes him in health. The hollows around his eyes set them dreadfully.

"I'm sorry," Blackwood says.

He speaks the words against the back of Coward's hand, hiding half his face behind it like a coquette hiding behind a fan. Coward can't see his mouth but he can tell he's still smiling.

"It's nothing," Coward says. "I'll enjoying replacing those things far more than it pained me to give them up, won't I?"

Blackwood laughs. "Didn't you tell me you were going to make gloves from Holmes' hide?"

He moves over and Coward sits down, pushing off his shoes. "Let's not talk about him."

Blackwood nods and then raises his eyebrows wickedly, scraping his teeth over the thin skin on the inside of Coward's wrist. The point of his tongue licks up the little map of veins there.

Coward gasps and pulls his hand away. "You need to rest."

"I've been resting all day."

"Do you feel well enough to eat then?"

Coward tries to keep the desperation from his voice. He won't let Henry hear that. He glances hopefully toward the chest of drawers, the only place he can keep their food that has a chance of stopping the rats getting in. A lesson learnt the hard way

"I should make tea," he says. "Eggs, do you think you can stand them? I know I haven't the most skill-"

"Daniel," Blackwood interrupts, laying a finger against his lips. "Will you just lay with me a while?"

Coward knows he should cook if there's even a chance that Henry will eat and he should clean too because that's something the doctor had mentioned as well. Try to keep things as fresh and clean as you can. Advice given with no small measure of pity, no small measure of contempt. As fresh as you can manage in a hovel like this. As clean as two unnatural creatures such as yourselves are ever able to get.

But it had been so cold outside, cold and ugly.

Blackwood pulls back the blankets and Coward slips into bed beside him. As they lie down, Henry hooks his ankle around Coward's and pulls him closer, one hand on the small of his back.

"There will have to be more of this," he instructs Henry.

Blackwood frowns slightly.

"When you're better," Coward clarifies. "Before-"

"We didn't have that kind of time."

"We should have made it."

Coward uses his fingers to comb Blackwood's hair into place, slicked back neatly from his face and when he's done he leaves his hand resting there at the back of his head. Their breath falls into the same pattern. Coward holds his for a moment, so that when Henry exhales, he inhales, back and forth, sharing the air. Rising and falling, their bodies fit together like two pieces carved out of a whole.

He's not sure when breathing turns to kissing. The shift is syrup slow, as natural as sugar turning to caramel beneath a flame. Henry is ill, but they're moving so carefully, so tenderly, surely it can't be doing any harm. They spend minutes, their lips just touching. Minutes where the only movement is Coward's toe, brushing softly up and down Henry's instep.

 _What if you get sick?_ Blackwood has asked the night after the doctor's visit and Coward had lied, _it's not infectious_. The truth was, if they didn't know what was making Henry ill, how on earth could they know if it was catching? He doesn't wonder if this has occurred to Henry. It doesn't matter which of them is lying when neither of them would give this up.

It's just the fever, Coward knows, but Blackwood is so hot, so hot it feels like he's touching the bright, burning core of him. Coward closes his eyes as Henry slips his hands beneath his shirt.

"Do I feel cold to you?" Coward whispers.

Blackwood kisses him and Coward moans quietly, a tremble of sound as soft as the mingling fog of their breath. Henry licks over his teeth, makes a deliberate, thorough map of his mouth with his tongue. They inhale, slow, exhale, slow. The rhythm of their kissing matches the deep, measured throb of his heartbeat, of Henry's heartbeat, of their pulse.

"You feel..." Henry begins.

But somewhere the thought gets lost and the words stand by themselves. Or maybe Henry does finish, does answer with words, but Coward can't pick them out from the answers that are in the touch of his hands or the sweet taste of his mouth.

Henry works a thigh between his legs and Coward squirms closer and rocks against him. There's the rough scrape of stubble against his cheek as Blackwood bites his earlobe, dragging his teeth along that little velvet piece of flesh and then kissing him behind the shell of his ear. Coward cries out and his hips buck forward.

"Gentle," he pants, clinging to Blackwood. He touches the fever damp skin at the nape of Henry's neck, his fingers slipping below the ill fitting collar and passing over that first bone of his spine. He spreads his hand wide across the burning expanse of Henry's back. "Gentle."

Henry murmurs an agreement against the side of his neck and then turns his head to mouth at his Adam's apple. Coward offers his throat up and shifts, grinding his hips into Henry, closing his eyes. He wants to forget where the one of them begins and the other ends. He wants to melt into Henry. This sickness couldn't stand against the two of them united. If only he could work his way under Henry's skin and into his blood.

Blackwood's tongue follows the line of his collar bone to the junction of his shoulder. He presses his mouth there, his teeth, just a gentle pressure. Coward's fingers slip on sweat, tremble as they stroke up his spine to cup the back of his head.

"Yes," he breathes. "But remember, Henry. C-careful."

He stammers as the ridge of Henry's teeth bite into him. He can feel the ruby bloom of blood under his skin, a red as deep as the ache flowering there. It feels like a burn, a suffused, throbbing sting. Coward's lips draw back from his teeth as he whines and forces his breath to remain even, shaking and unsteady but still moving to the same beat between them. His fingers curl, but don't tighten, in Blackwood's hair.

Henry strokes his fingers over Coward's closed eyelids and then pins his left hand onto the pillow where it's laying and clasps it with his own.

"Let me see," Henry says.

Coward opens his eyes and Henry's thigh slides against him again and then a breath and then again, rocking on the wave of pleasure that's building inside him. Henry's hand is squeezing his, hot, hard, tight. Henry's body is the shore he breaks upon.

He keeps his eyes open. His eyelashes flutter, the muscles in his stomach tremble, everything is collapsing inward at this peak, this stripped back moment of total vulnerability but he keeps his eyes open so Henry can watch it happening. He comes with Henry's name on his tongue, gasping, light-headed and when Henry follows he sees that too. The way Henry's eyebrows draw together like he's in pain, the shine of his lips half parted, the rush of air through his teeth.

Their noses brush. Coward exhales one short huff of air at at time. They're both shaking, little ripples of pleasure slowly unwinding as they relax back into each other.

It's possible to mistake the points of fever on Henry's cheeks for the innocent flush of exertion. Resting against the second hand cream of the bedsheets, his skin does not look quite so drawn and close within each other's arms, Coward is spared any kind of damning perspective. The gutter pigeons are cooing like turtle doves.

Henry swipes his tongue across his top lip and Coward leans in and kisses the taste of sweat from his mouth.

"You think I look like a vagabond," he says, stroking the beard that's starting to grow under Henry's chin. "I bought soap."

"Then you are a ministering angel in deed as well as form," Henry says, with mock solemnity.

Coward clicks his tongue against his teeth and swats at him. "Malingerer."

He strokes his fingers under the loose neck of Henry's shirt, tracking the heat of his fever. Maybe it's receding, maybe it's not as bad as all that. Maybe. The hollows of his collar are different to the ones Coward has learnt, committed to the sense memory of fingertips and mouth. There's so much more bone.

Blackwood makes a rumbling noise of pleasure as Coward plays with his chest hair, plucking at it with the backs of two fingers. There's a small red mark above his right breast and Coward smiles at it, lost in memory. No longer boxed in this mean, squalid room, he's daydreaming of vaulted ceilings and marble. Henry gleaming, stripped to the skin and painted with twisting symbols. Watching him fuck something young and unwilling and soon to die.

Sometimes they'd roll the body off the altar and Blackwood would climb up onto the hot, stained stone. He'd be anointed in coconut oil, the blood mixed with honey and Coward would lick him clean in the name of ritual purification. All before the eyes of their brethren who saw it as worship and not that greater perversion of love, although it was both.

He rubs at the mark with the edge of one fingernail and frowns when it doesn't flake away. He screws his eyes shut and then opens them again, banishing flights of fancy and and expects it to have vanished too, except it's still there. Now the gates of memory clang firmly shut and Coward is thrust back into the unforgiving present.

Coward props himself up and grabs at Blackwood's clothes tugging them up over his stomach and Henry is laughing, is saying something that Coward can't hear over the swelling horror rolling over him.

He stares down at Blackwood's exposed skin and puts his hand over his mouth.

They're like freckles, pale rose spots, faint and flat all over Henry's stomach. He presses down on one, trying to make it disappear and Blackwood yells, shoving him away. Coward tumbles half off the bed, landing hard on his elbows. Blackwood is cradling his stomach, jaw tight with pain.

"It's not-" Blackwood begins, not looking at him as Coward untangles his legs from the sheets and clambers onto the floor. "Just stomach pains, it'll pass."

"How long?" Coward asks.

"I...how many days have we been here now?"

Coward closes his eyes. It's a while before either of them speaks again.  
  
-

  
Coward never thought he could have wanted anything more from Blackwood, or that there would ever come a day where he wished for something other than what he had been given.

These were not favours he could hold in his hands. They were kisses stolen in the soundless corridors of the Lords, they were bruises like emeralds given to ornament his skin. They were glances that set him apart, set him _above_ , every other thing in the whole order of creation.

Coward was far wealthier than Blackwood yet he never felt so wealthy as when he was rich in Henry's affections. Of course his money was the reason Blackwood never furnished him with real trinkets. Henry's pride would never allow him to give Coward anything less than that which Coward could buy for himself, though once Henry held the throne of England, Coward would not be surprised to find the Koh-I-Noor left under his pillow for a gift. Still, nothing would ever hold as much value as the lingering touch of Henry's hand.

Huddled by the fire, he can't help but wish it had been different; a ring, a tie pin, a set of cuff-links? Nothing Blackwood gave him would ever have left his person, he would have those things _now_ , but-

But there's no use in wishing. There's nothing left to sell.

Yesterday he'd hurried out onto the street after the coal cart had been by, scrabbling in the dirt for scraps. The fire eats mercilessly away at what little they have left. On his hands and knees, _on his hands and_ \- and he pinches the thin skin below his knuckles to try and block the memory but he can't stop it, just like he can't stop wishing for what might have been.

What if they had left the country straight away? Oh but Henry would never have countenanced that kind of retreat. If he's going to wish he may as well wish that his bullet had found Holmes' heart

He might wish he could stop the rats from getting into the food, but then he'd have to wish that Henry would start to eat again too. His own appetite is all but dead since every meal that Blackwood won't take drops another leaden weight in his stomach.

Coward knows his family have disowned him publicly. It's foolhardy to imagine they might not mean it, dangerous to think of going to them for help now. If he's arrested then what will happen to Henry? Coward buries his face in his hands and then laughs, muffling his hysteria with his palms so as not to wake Henry. He expects his mother would refuse to read the papers, red faced and tight lipped. He wonders about his father. It won't just be the papers of course, it will be people in the streets from high to low and will they only talk of murder? Have the other members of their group come forward to talk about unnatural vices too?

Murder in print makes him think of breakfast. He used to make Henry read the paper to him in bed, watching him with smiling eyes as he spoke oh so solemnly of horror and depravity.

 _What sort of wicked creature,_ Coward would grin and pull the paper from his hands. _What sort of devil . . ._

And he'd climb astride him, the paper falling to the wayside in a rustle of irrelevant stories.

Breakfast would be nice. Tea and toast. If Henry would eat. If Henry would only, only _eat_. His fever isn't getting any better (and if Coward could bear to think about it honestly, he'd have to admit it's getting _worse_ ) and he sleeps through most of the day. Coward has to wait until Henry is half delirious to press an honest answer out of him about the pain in his stomach and the pain in his joints, about how he feels so dizzy but please, Daniel, you shouldn't worry. 

Wait and see, the doctor had said, but patience is easy to counsel. When he is holding his breath, watching helpless as the light fades about him, every second is twice as hard to bear as the last. Hope is something he clings to but it's as a chain running faster and faster through his hands and all the while the pain of that compounds, their money is dwindling.

There's Henry's ring.

Not his signet, Henry offered him that to sell almost straight away, but the one he took from Rotheram.

The black stone catches the light when Henry's hands twitch in his sleep. Or maybe Coward only imagines that, maybe his eyes end up creeping back there of his own accord. How many doctors would it buy? How many meals? But he can't ask Henry for that. He would say yes, Coward thinks, but he remembers how Henry was that night.

Blackwood has different ways of being silent. Sometimes he's quiet to tempt you to fill the void with your own words, to reveal things about yourself that you don't even know you're revealing. Sometimes the quiet hums and then Coward can almost pick Henry's thoughts out of the air. The best silence of all is the kind they make between themselves.

The night, Henry's silence had frightened him. He would have broken it straight away if there was anything he could have said, but it would have been laughable to ask the question. Was Thomas dead? There was his ring on Henry's finger. Coward thought they would be celebrating before Blackwood moved past him wordlessly and sat, staring at his hand.

Coward had seen something in Henry then, or felt it perhaps, for the silence that billowed out from him had been a heavy, thick thing between them. A howling _lack_ , dark as the onyx of the ring and cold, as though it were pouring from a place where no light had ever been. It brought an awful knowledge with it; that was the precipice upon which Henry teetered and how deep the darkness in him went, how easily those things which fuelled him might also destroy him.

All he could do was sit with Henry in his silence and watch as he lifted his hand and turned the ring back and forth. Until Coward couldn't stand to see it any more, the dark of the stone reflected like a mirror in the darkness of Henry's eyes, each image seeming to grow as they swallowed one another up. He snapped and tried to cover it with his own hand and Henry flinched. Wherever his mind had taken him, Coward was not there. It must have felt like the touch of a ghost.

 _Let me see_ , Coward had said that, hadn't he? Did he know at the time what he was repeating? The same words that Henry had put to him the first night they spent together. When Henry had been inside him and Coward's eyes had been shut tight against the power of it, sure that one more sense would undo him completely.

 _Let me see_ , he said, meaning, _let me in_ and Henry had jerked his hand back and struck him, the look on his face like that of some wild animal, cornered and panicking and most of all, blind. Coward had dropped to his knees and caught that hand again, had pressed his lips to the stone of the ring and felt Henry's fingers trembling, held them tight, _I'm here_. Neither of them moving until Henry turned his hand to brush the cheek he'd struck in mute apology.

Coward won't ask him to give the ring up. Perhaps, perhaps if it were their only option. But it's not, is it?

-

Three streets over, the lamps of Spitalfields Market shine gaily in the night like the lights of a carnival. Even here, Coward can smell chestnuts roasting. Christmas is coming, only a fortnight away and in the market the vendors will be calling out their prices to steam in the cold air, lifting their goods to the eyes of the crowds huddled around their stalls, haggling down to the last farthing.

It's a different kind of trade that brings him out tonight. His clothes aren't fit to save him from the stark chill of the wind but they're fit enough for his purpose and he has the nervous flush of his skin to keep him warm besides. If it wasn't so cold he doesn't think he could stand that prickling heat on the back of his neck, if it wasn't so empty he doesn't think his stomach would settle.

But he must think of this pragmatically. He was never afraid to get his hands dirty before. He'd liked it then, hadn't he? All those necessary evils? All that blood on his hands, crimson that mottled his skin like a blush divorced of shame. Even the first time, the blades had made him more excited than nervous.

It's not so simple when the sacrifice is yourself but Coward refuses to think of that way. He isn't a martyr, this is just another means to an end and nothing more. If you want to draw a straight line you keep your eyes on your point of destination, not on the hand that holds the pen.

He knows the reputation of this street now. He has found his feet leading him back here time and time again through no will of his own. Like a sleepwalker who only wakes when he finds himself at the edge of some hazard. The business that goes on down here is subtle unless you know what you are looking out for. Things in the dark that perhaps you choose not to see.

He hopes Henry does not wake while he is gone. He hopes his dreams are pleasant ones.

Coward leans back against the wall, his shoulder blades laying uncomfortably against the brick, and lets his gaze linger on the men who pass by. He positions his limbs as best he can to make an open invitation of his body, hands in his pockets pulling his trousers tight against his hips.

In these past weeks he's almost forgotten how to wear a mask, the ways in which to close the real parts of himself away. That attentive, earnest sincerity he showed Sir Thomas, the respectful inclination of his head toward his peers, he'd torn that false face off in Parliament the day things all went wrong. He'd thought then that at last he would be free of it.

It's difficult to patch it back together now. He licks his lips, anxious and cannot quite shutter the restless shine of desperation in his eyes.

Anchored to the tide of panic and relief that tightens his ribcage as he is passed over again and again, his heart sinks when a man finally approaches him. Coward plasters a smile over his dread and tries to remember that this is what he came here for, keeps his mind on _why_ he came here and doesn't look too hard at the man in front of him.

It was one of the decisions he made before he came out tonight, don't look too close, set yourself apart from what you're doing. All this is forgotten as the man puts a hand on his shoulder. It is incredibly heavy and Coward draws in a startled breath. He looks up and thinks of the rats that slither through the floorboards. He can't tell the man's age, he seems more weathered than old; there's no grey in his hair but the lines on his face are deep.

He opens his mouth with no idea what he's going to say but the way the man's gaze drops makes him press his lips together tight. The hand falls to the top of his arm and steers him down the road and Coward allows it, dumbly. They step into the mouth of a narrow alley, the shadows pooling darker here to gave them a cheap sort of privacy.

All at once Coward is pressed back against the wall with the rough, grim weight of another body. The smell of unwashed clothes fills his nostrils. The man paws at him between his legs and Coward tries to wriggle back into the brick, rises up onto the tips of his toes.

"Money," he gasps, startled into abruptness.

The man stops. Coward freezes too, _be pleasing_ , he thinks frantically. Everything is happening so fast but if he can just remember that. It's just another role. He puts his hand on the man's chest and bites his bottom lip, ducking his head.

"You won't regret it," he says, softly.

The man laughs at him. "You'll get your money after."

Coward tries to step back but the wall is right there, caging him in. He shakes his head.

"I need it first."

The man grabs him by the collar. "You saying you don't trust me, whore?"

He shakes him and Coward teeth rattle inside his head, there's not enough flesh covering his bones. He feels hollow, as empty as an echo.

"No," he says and puts a beseeching hand on the man's arm. "Please. It's fine."

The man snorts impatiently and rolls his eyes and there's a very simple sort of contempt in that gaze. It's ridiculous for Coward to be talking of what's fine or what isn't. For an instant Coward thinks of bolting, of diving up out of this darkness and running back onto the street, surfacing in a crowd of noise and light and warmth. But the endless maze of the city only leads back to the same place in the end, there's nowhere to run to.

He's haltered again, hands pushing down on his shoulders and Coward lets it happen. He gets onto his knees for this nobody, this no one, an ugly shape cut out of the ash of night. Cold, scummy water soaks through his trousers. He doesn't know what to do with his hands so he rests them on his knees, so neat a gesture it feels absurd.

When the man unfastens his trousers, Coward glances away. His cock is like a pale little grub, something so pathetic about the sight that Coward is almost embarrassed for him. He doesn't want to look at it, let alone. Well.

He won't think of Henry and dirty up his image by bringing him here.

In fact, it doesn't matter what he tries to think of. As soon as he opens his mouth for this stranger his thoughts flee like vermin from the light. There is a perfect, blank space in his head where the details of this picture are burning themselves. His mouth is open. He is kneeling amongst the rubbish. Water drips from a ledge onto the cobbles in loud, fat drops.

Later it will feel as though as chain has been run right through him, that he couldn't close his mouth for the entire time, or move. Or breath.

The man feeds him his cock and Coward's stomach turns at the dank, half flaccid flesh filling his mouth. The taste curdles on his tongue. Nausea tickles the back of his throat. The cold pricks up his senses, the grit digging into his knees, the heavy rasp of the man's breath, he's trapped in the reality of the moment and if he tried to crawl out of his head? All he can see then is the picture he makes, the hollow of his cheeks as he sucks.

The man touches his hair, petting him, muttering encouragements under his breath. His words are all sickly sweet, crooning questions in a way that bothers Coward more than the filthy thing in his mouth. Isn't he good at this? Isn't he doing so well? Isn't he pretty like this and isn't this what a mouth like he was made for? Coward's hands are kneading his thighs and he's trying not to gag.

Pretty? His jaw hurts and there's spit on his chin, his eyes leaking tears. There's pressure making his ears buzz and his face must be red, not enough air, his breath too shallow. Far too slowly the endearments turn to curses. Coward chokes as the man's cock jabs at the back of his throat

He panics when the man jerks forward and stills, beats his hands against the course wool of his trousers, trying to push him away. The man's thumbs press into the side of his face and his head is forced back against the alley wall and then there's sudden warmth spilling across his tongue. Coward retches as it pools at the back of his mouth, trickling down his throat.

The man tucks his softening cock back into his trousers. Coward stares at the floor, shivering. He wipes his arm across his mouth leaving a long, damp smear on the cotton. Runs his tongue all over his teeth and swallows until his mouth feels dry.

The coins are tossed onto the ground in front of him. Coward glances up to see the man's back as he walks briskly away, and then scrabbles forward to grab them off the floor. They bite into his palm as he squeezes them tight in his fist and pulls his knees into his chest, leaning back against the wall, breathing hard and fast through his nose.

He makes it halfway back home before he has to stop, lean against the wall and throw up. He hasn't eaten all day, it's just bile but he can't stop, dry heaving until it feels like his insides are bruised and the back of his throat is burning. No one spares him a glance as they walk by.

-

"Come back to bed, Henry," Coward murmurs, stretching his hand out across the cold mattress.

His skin itches under his clothes, his head is pounding from a lack of sleep. Henry tosses and turns all night, kicking out from the depths of his unconscious delirium. It's the third time this week that Coward has woken from uneasy dreams to find the bed empty.

Henry is kneeling next to the cold fireplace, pawing frantically at the coal dust with shaking hands. His clothes hang on him, loose. His body is too long, too lean, he looks like a scarecrow or some kind of insect, too many angles all folded in on themselves. Coward had been dreaming of a book, impossible to read because the words kept shifting and slipping off the pages and now he wakes to find the floor covered in the same sort of meaningless scribbling.

The circles are smudged and uneven, the runes have been drawn over one another, spiralling out from Henry and his cinder blackened hands. The lines he's making cross where they shouldn't in unsymmetrical, manic knots. Coward pushes himself wearily upright and the mattress sags down through a broken slat in the bed frame. He kicks a cup across the floor as he steps out of bed, spilling brackish water over his toes.

"Come back to bed," he says, putting his hands on Henry's shoulders.

He closes his eyes as Henry keeps scrawling in the ash. It's too easy to feel the bones beneath his palms.

He imagines the fireplace roaring and the splinters under his feet the thick pile of a carpet. Finding Henry in that old leather chair with a book in one hand, the other propping up his head. Leaning over the back of the chair and whispering, _come back to bed_. Henry marking his place and putting the book aside and sometimes he'd come to bed and sometimes Coward would climb onto his lap and sometimes they'd fall onto the floor together.

And every time he thinks on it now he can feel the skeleton of this future grinning at them both. Henry starts to shake violently under his hands and Coward sinks to the floor and circles him tight with his arms.

"It's okay, it's okay, hush," he says and rocks them both back and forth, smearing Henry's drawings.

He grips his own wrists hard and keeps making soft, comforting noises against Henry's shoulder until he stops shaking. He doesn't think Henry can tell what he's saying but maybe the sound of it helps. The fever has only gotten worse and brought these episodes along with it. There are times when Henry stares around wide eyed, like he can see something Coward cannot and times when he doesn't seem to see Coward at all.

"Daniel?" Henry asks, he sounds terrified.

"Yes, it's all right. I'm here. I'm here, Henry," he presses a kiss to Henry's cheek. "Please, it's cold. Come to bed."

"I'm not cold."

Coward clenches his jaw and swallows the sob in his throat with fierce determination.

"I know, but I need you to keep me warm don't I, darling?"

Slowly, Henry nods and then allows himself to be led back over to the bed. They're both covered in soot but Coward doesn't care about the black marks he's leaving as he helps Henry back under the sheets and then tucks himself in beside. Henry shivers, his eyes moving restlessly around the room.

"Time to sleep now," Coward says, stroking the side of Henry's face. "Close your eyes."

"Daniel, I don't feel very well," Henry says.

"Don't worry about that. Close your eyes."

Henry's eyes slip closed and Coward sighs, he can still feel him trembling beneath his hand. The window rattles above them. He thinks of a nursery rhyme, _the north wind will blow and we shall have snow . . ._

"And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?" he sings beneath his breath, off key, combing his dirty fingers through Henry's hair.

Henry settles in fits and starts until finally his breath falls into the calm rhythm of sleep. Coward's eyes are heavy but he's sure already he won't find rest again tonight. He's left a dark grey smudge on Henry's cheek, a blurred suggestion of a hand print. _Mine_ , he thinks quite seriously,  _you can't have him._

For a moment the thought is reassuring in its perfect sense, but then as Coward smiles, it collapses. It's only the logic of a dream and he's so tired he can hardly tell the difference between those and waking thoughts but he knows at least that this is not a hope he can cling to without it giving way.

He's learning now, how to clip the wings of his hope. It's something he has to believe can be mended later for Henry always told him how he loved his vision, the unabashed scope of his dreams, but for now the small victories must be enough. They'll have money to pay the doctor again soon. Perhaps he can figure it so they can find a room somewhere above ground, with light and air to help Henry's condition.

It's all accounting after all and Coward is a quick study. So he's learning what parts of himself he can give up and he's learning how to better sell what he has left. How to stand, how to smile. The look in a man's eyes that says he wants you to be silent, the one that says he wants you to talk to him, make playful conversation or beg or make believe. He can do all those things and never lose count of how many seconds he's left Henry alone.

A bedbug crawls across the pillow and Coward watches with a detached sense of revulsion, unmoving. He _does_ fall asleep then, tracking its slow progress across the bed, wondering if he could begrudge a small part of his flesh to a customer so undemanding.

-

"Typhoid," the doctor says.

Coward looks down at his hands.

The skin is peeling back from his cuticles. There are little callouses growing on his palms, patches of dry skin. He has to use the same soap powder on the floor, on their clothes, on his skin.

"I'm sorry," the doctor says.

Coward nods.

"How long will it take him to recover?" he asks.

And clenches his teeth against the silence that follows and stares at his hands, his poor, dry hands. He isn't going to look at the doctor's face, these ordinary people don't know how to wear their masks properly, they give everything away with one glance.

"It's not-"

"My cousin's wife was struck with typhoid before they were engaged," Coward says. "They'll have been married six years come next spring."

He walks over to the bed. The doctor is sitting beside Henry on the one good chair they have. Henry is delirious. Henry has _been_ delirious for the past day and a half. His eyes are open but he's blind to both of them, shivering and sweating.

"I'm afraid there may be some complications."

"Shhh," Coward hushes Henry, who is mumbling something insensible. His lips are cracked, half stuck together with dry saliva.

He kneels down beside the bed and wrings out the rag that's soaking in a cup at the side of the bed. He presses the damp cloth gently to Henry's mouth, dabs it against his forehead and follows it with the stroke of his hand. He needs Henry to know he's there, that things will be okay. His touch will come through where ever Henry might be, even if he's trapped in the deepest sort of nightmare Coward is sure his touch will find its way to comfort him.

"There's considerable swelling in his abdominal region," the doctor says. "I believe his intestine may be ulcerated."

Coward winces. His hand trembles, skipping over Henry's skin. He lets it fall onto the pillow above Henry's head and clutches it so hard the cotton squeaks.

"Which has provoked infection, this delirium, the fits you described, point to an inflammation of the brain itself."

"You don't know that."

After a moment the doctor agrees. "No."

Coward hears his poor attempt at diplomacy for what it is and worse, can pick out every strand of pity in it. He looks up at the doctor and his eyes sting like they're burning.

"Well for God's sake man, what's to be done for him?"

The doctor's hands are chubby, clumsy looking things. Coward watches him fidget uneasily in his chair, folding them together and then unfolding them again. The light from the window has the soft dwindling quality of a winter afternoon. It casts a warm glow over the three of them, so very deceptive, this sunset in orange.

"Well. He should have milk," the doctor says. "Beef tea. For his comfort. I have a compound that may help the fever, however . . ."

The doctor looks around the room, at the floorboards, the grey-white of the bed, at every place but Coward. He steeples his fingers together tentatively and there's something so damnably apologetic about him that Coward can barely stand it.

"However?"

It's a snarl. He can see the shape of himself reflected in the doctor's glasses, crouching, tense. He brushes his hair out of his face, eyes narrowed. His gaze is as flat as a viper's and the pity on the doctor's face hardens. Coward understands it's his own manner of speech, his bearing, that had surprised compassion out of the other man in the first place. Coward had read the unspoken question on the doctor's face the first time he'd been called for, how did someone as clearly well bred as Coward come to such a sorry pass?

Now he's bristling at being spoken to like this by a man who pays his fee in pennies.

"However, one may wish to weigh the expense against the good it will do."

"Will you say what you mean," Coward snaps.

"Your friend is dying."

"Don't be absurd."

The doctor says nothing for what feels like a very long time. Coward leans on the bed, dizzy.

"I'm sorry," the doctor offers again, standing up.

Coward shakes his head, pulling himself up to his feet. His body seems very light all of a sudden, as though he's only barely anchored to it. He gives a short, jagged laugh.

"And what are you?" he sneers at the doctor. "The son of a shopkeeper I expect, who acquires a little learning and thinks that he can, that he can . . . "

Hand out a death sentence to a man like Lord Blackwood. Coward laughs again, a sound tumbled up into a choked gasp as if he's been struck in the stomach. The doctor frowns, puffing himself up, offended.

"I'd make my peace with it if I were you-"

"If you were me," Coward echoes, derisive.

"For I doubt he will last the week."

The smile drops from Coward's face in an instant.

"You charlatan," he hisses.

He strikes the man across the face with the back of his hand, feeling the sting of it in his knuckles. The doctor staggers backward, trips over the chair and falls. He doesn't make much noise when he hits the floor, a dull thump like a sluggish heartbeat. Coward watches the fear flare in his eyes and glances at Henry; who isn't smiling, who doesn't say, _don't frighten the man_ , who doesn't say anything at all. The doctor tries to scrabble backward but he's got one foot caught in the chair and doesn't seem to realize it.

These pests get _everywhere_ , Coward rubs the heels of his palms against his eyes, this world is crawling with the miserable and the weak and the worthless, there's just too much filth and this one says that Henry will die. That Henry will die and what, that he should live? That any of them should live.

He steps toward the table and the doctor makes a strangled, panicked sound that makes no sense to Coward until he looks down at his hand and finds he's picked up the bread knife that was laying there. The blade is the wrong shape, he thinks dreamily. The handle is warm and smooth is in his palm, a tawny sort of wood that's been polished slippery by use.

"False words are not only evil in themselves," he says, pointing the knife at the doctor and the sun catches on the blade like marmalade. "But they infect the soul with evil."

It would be simple to end this man's life. That pale, fatty neck would tear open so easily and then his blood would gush bright and cheerful, cherry red through the floorboards. The doctor could choke on his own vile pronouncements, drown himself, blubbering. Beneath the floor the rats would try to clean their whiskers but Coward could see this man bled dry, their fur matted with gore, their tails clotting together a make a rat king.

"Get out," Coward says.

The chair rattles against the bed frame as the doctor jerks his legs free and staggers to his feet, almost tripping again in his haste. Coward forces himself to concentrate on the weight of the knife as he turns it in his hand, counts each rotation until he hears the door close.

He screams.

Maybe he wants to turn that scalloped edge on his own belly, deflate the pain that's suddenly ballooning inside him before it bursts and poisons his blood. He tosses the knife to the floor in disgust. Henry turns toward the noise, eyes sightless as marbles.

"Don't listen to him," he points his finger at Blackwood. "Don't you dare, don't you-"

He stops, clasping his hand over his mouth. His stomach lurches and he staggers over to the side of the bed, falling to his knees beside the overturned chair.

"You won't do that to me. I know you won't do that to me, Henry. You promised. You _promised_ , remember?"

-

He wakes to a warm hand touching the side of his face. It can't be much later, the sun has set but the fire hasn't burnt out. His legs have fallen asleep beneath him. The corner of the mattress is digging into his cheek, his neck's gone completely stiff and there's-

And there's a hand touching his face.

Coward jerks upright, scrabbling at his waistband for a weapon that's not there and Henry laughs. He holds his hand up in front of Coward's face, his fingertips damp, confronting him with his own tears and Cowards blinks, startled, and wipes his cheeks hurriedly.

"Henry?"

Henry has turned his hand back to himself and is frowning as though the sight of Coward's tears are something he can't quite comprehend. He tilts his head and moves his fingers slowly in the dim, uncertain light of the fire.

"Henry," Coward says again and pulls Henry's hand down to the bed, squeezing his fingers together. "How do you feel?" 

Henry's frown deepens.

"Would you like something to eat?" Coward tries. The question feels heavy on his tongue. The weight of those words are too familiar to him.

"Why not?" Blackwood says.

"Henry you _have_ to-" he stops, astonished. "You're hungry?"

"Dinner might be pleasant," Henry says.

Coward laughs, then quickly covers his mouth. The sound is bright and shocking in this room and it feels dangerous to Coward, too much joy could break something surely? Like moving a cold dish into a hot oven, something in him will crack if he lets it out.

"That's . . . " he grins, giddy and struck almost wordless with relief. "Wonderful. All right, yes."

He looks over his shoulder at the dresser. No solids, that's what the doctor said and although Coward finds himself mentally scoffing at this advice now, he suppose it might be better not to take the risk. The shape of the dresser swims, indistinct before his eyes and Coward blinks to clear his vision. He finds he can't quite recall what they have left to eat. It doesn't matter though, he can make do with whatever is there.

Wincing, he uses the wall to brace himself as he stands, legs already humming with pins and needles. He locks his elbows to stop his arms from shaking too badly and lets his head hang down for a moment as he catches his breath. There are shiny patches all up the wall where his hands have been, oil from running his hands through his hair over and over as he prayed at Henry's bedside.

"What about Kettner's?" Henry asks.

"Kettner's?"

Coward sounds out the word, confused.

"The mousseline?" Henry says. "It was practically indecent how much you were enjoying that asparagus."

"That little place on Church Street . . . "

"Ah, you do remember then."

Coward shakes his head, he has a fuzzy recollection of bronze and muted greens, soft colours in the wallpaper and softer lights. The memory is bleary and half formed, like something left soaking too long underwater.

"No?" Henry continues. "The Cavour perhaps? Unless you have your-"

"Henry, what are you-"

"-mind set on some place already?"

Henry is smiling at him, his arms folded across his lap. The shirt sleeves are too short and his wrists are bare. Coward's mouth hangs open, he gathers his breath to speak and then exhales silently. He reaches down and brushes the skin on the back of Henry's hand.

"We can't," he says, averting his eyes from Henry's face. "We can't go to the Cavour."

It's like lifting up an old paving stone and closing your eyes so you don't have to see the skittering things revealed beneath.

"Butting heads with Abernathy again?" Henry asks.

The web of skin between his forefinger and thumb feels tight as he circles Henry's wrist. He mouths the word, _no_ , his lips hardly moving. Reginald Abernathy has been dead for almost five years. He thinks, sickly, Henry should remember that. If Abernathy had not peered down his nose at Henry with quite such obvious contempt he would no doubt still be alive today.

The point remained. He was not. The Cavour had been Abernathy's favourite haunt, Coward remembers, and how Henry had laughed and declared that he was damned if he was going to have his choice of dining establishment dictated to him by anyone, let alone a fool like _Reginald_.

"Daniel?" Henry prompts.

"Oh," Coward says. He traces the creases of Henry's knuckle with the edge of his fingernail, takes a deep breath. "Yes."

"The man's ridiculous, have you heard his latest bright idea for Ireland?" Blackwood snorts.

Coward pins his smile to his face hard. He thinks with the fire behind him, Henry won't be able to see how his mouth is trembling. There's an ache in his throat, a dark black clot tangled up in his vocal cords, he knows he won't be able to make a sound that doesn't crack and break into a sob.

Even if he trusted himself to speak he wouldn't. If he talks it might break this spell. Henry sounds so much better than he has in days. So he's dreaming awake, in another time and place, but at least he's lucid and at least Coward is there with him.

"Did you . . . " Henry pauses and Coward looks up. There's a bemused sort of frown on Henry's face. "Did you shave?"

Coward nods. Henry touches his jaw, turns his face from on side to the other.

"I'm not sure if I approve," he says.

Something wicked and completely familiar creeps into Henry's gaze and in that moment Coward could believe that they'd both been plucked out of this pit of the present. Henry's eyes seem so clear, so certain. If Coward pinholes his world to just that, he could believe he was waking suddenly from a nightmare and finding Henry there to comfort him. He does nothing as Henry leans up and steals a kiss from him.

The humming, thoughtful note Henry makes against his lips tickles.

"Well, I suppose I have no objections," Henry says, with mock reluctance. "Though perhaps further investigation is warranted."

His mouth is so dry. His hand is hot on the side of Coward's face.

"Will you humour me in something?" Coward asks.

-

He prepares a supper as best he can, uses the bread knife to saw through pieces of beef that are more gristle than meat. The blade scores lines into the table but the sinews just stretch flat and white and refuse to tear until his palm aches from the weight he has to put on the handle. He starts to think he made the right decision with the doctor, it could have gone badly for him.

Henry is sitting in bed, talking about plans that have already taken place, happy in his delusion. Coward presses harder on the knife. He's used to blades that pass through flesh like butter, but perhaps that's just a delusion too. The past does seem like a dream, something hovering at the back of his mind but impossible to recover and crumbling apart the longer they have to breathe the foetid air of this reality.

Except if he were mad and merely dreaming the deaths of all those people, they wouldn't be here, would they? Besides, he doesn't care to wish their deaths away. He's wondered if this is punishment for what he and Henry did, has _tried_ to wonder but he cannot believe it. He had been afraid to look into himself but now it's come to this he finds there is no guilt buried within him at all.

The water boils, the meat stews. Coward finds the last stub of a candle they have left and lights it carefully, cupping the flame in hand as he carries it over to the chair they use for a bedside table.

"This is cosy, isn't it?" Coward says.

Henry catches his hand and holds it over the candle flame. Coward smiles and does not pull away, his fingers still in Henry's grip which does not force, merely steadies him there for just a breath after the first lick of pain across his palm.

"You're right," Henry says and releases him.

Coward passes his fingers through the fire and then holds them up, unharmed.

Once the broth is done, he pours a bowl and brings it over to the bed. Henry is sitting up, cross legged. It's as though he can't see the room or what they both look like and although Coward can tell when a shadow of pain crosses his face, Henry just pauses for a moment, blinks or gives a slight shake of his head and then carries on like nothing's wrong.

Coward climbs onto the bed and sits back on his heels, he puts the bowl into Henry's hands and Henry immediately places it down in his lap.

"We'll have you Home Secretary within the year," he's saying.

Coward stares at the bowl.

"Is something wrong, Daniel?"

"I was thinking . . . is this, is this not a grand enough ambition?"

Blackwood frowns, puzzled. His hand is resting on the spoon and Coward touches him, tries to curl Henry's fingers around the metal but Henry turns his palm and strokes up the inside of his wrist instead.

"Would you have been-" Coward stops and grits his teeth. "Could you be happy just with this?"

He links their fingers. Henry looks down at their hands, then up at Coward.

"Could _you_?" Henry asks.

The broth almost spills out of the bowl as Coward jerks his hand back. Henry laughs, indulgent and knowing and Coward feels as though a tiny hole has been pierced in his lungs. There's a chill pain in his chest that reminds him of having too little breath, suffocating on swallowed air.

Henry shakes his head. "If you said yes-"

"But, no, I-"

"If you said yes, well, I wouldn't believe I was talking to _my_ Daniel."

Coward shivers.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Henry says.

The bowl is still there in Henry's lap, ignored. Coward picks it up and stirs the broth, little concentric circles that disappear as soon as he stops moving the spoon. He stares at the grease floating filmy over the liquid, stirring one way, then the other, round and round like he's shifting tea leaves; searching for an answer.

-

It's like their first night here all over again. Regurgitated, vile, now Coward doesn't want to let Henry sleep because he can sense the rot that's worked its tendrils through the frame of Henry's bones. For now he can hold it at bay, he can stretch this one night into an eternity if he can just keep talking. Sleep is too close to that other thing. Slipping away into sleep, he doesn't want to let Henry travel that far from the shore of his embrace. Maybe if they make it through this night together, in the morning things will be different.

He thought the rabbits in the butcher's window reminded him of the dead. Lying on his stomach, one hand on Henry's chest, he is stretched out and concave, his skin velveted with dirt. He listens to the rattle of Henry's breath and clutches on to the sound. He mumbles nonsense, fragments of sentences that are shattered by exhaustion. He loses the thread of his own thoughts and in the end all he can say is; _I love you_.

And when he can longer stop his eyes from closing, he can still say that. _I love you, you'll remember that, won't you, Henry? Don't forget that. Keep that._

Packing him endearments for the dark.

-

In the morning things _are_ different.

The fever is gone. It's snowing. Henry isn't breathing any more.

There's nothing in for breakfast but if Coward goes outside the snow will soak through his shoes and the bottom of his trousers and he thinks; better to just go back to sleep for a while. When he wakes up again the sun may have melted the ice and baked the cobblestones dry. He huddles closer to Henry because Henry is cold and pulls the blankets over both their heads to block the light and closes his eyes.

The afternoon brings clear skies in an arctic, callous blue. The space between Henry and he, which Coward so desperately tries to wriggle into, refuses to warm.

The back of his throat is aching with words he can't speak, their jagged edges cutting his insides to ribbons, a chain of broken glass that's unwinding from his heart and out of his silent mouth. _Too late to be sleeping in, Henry, wake up. Come back._

He rests his head on Henry's still chest and starts to cry and all there is then is pain. Hurt blots out the sky, blots out the room, blots out the bed, everything but the feel of Henry's skin against his wet cheek.

The world is a vast, vast place. Outside of this one small space, Coward can imagine the innumerable labyrinths of streets, of roads and rivers and then, of fields and mountains and forests. Unknown faces in unknown towns. Oceans. Other countries. Deserts and wonders and stone stacked up into shapes he's never seen before and in all of these places, amongst all of uncountable creation, he will never find Henry again.

There's nothing to any of it it then. Paper and ash, the painted backdrop to a play. Without Henry, nothing is real because nothing matters. It hits him very sudden and very strong and stops his tears the moment he realizes, even if he leaves this room, he will never _leave_ this room.

And finally he can speak.

"It's all right," he says and kisses Henry on the cheek.

He drags the table over to the staircase, then piles the chairs on top of it. In the kitchen, he breaks off what parts of the cupboards he can and adds them to the stack. The dresser drawers come next, he tries to move the dresser itself but it tips over and he hasn't got the strength to push it over the uneven floorboards. It's enough anyway.

It's not too difficult to start the fire. Coward stands and watches it burn until he's sure it won't go out (until he's sure he couldn't climb over and get to the door) and it's almost shocking how fast the wood catches, how quickly the flames start to leap up toward the ceiling.

Almost shocking but for the pleasant peace that's settled over him. He's smiling as he climbs back into bed with Henry. The fire will burn them out of any recognition. He's heard reports of pauper's graves, eleven, twelve bodies all buried together with no soil to separate one from another. How lovely it is to think of laying, twined with Henry like that for all eternity. Perhaps the fire will melt them together now.

As the smoke fills the room, Coward doesn't fight the dizziness that rushes over him with each breath. He can hear screaming coming from above, past the buzzing in his ears and the hot ache in his head. Thick, charcoal storm clouds are rolling over the ceiling. His fingers feel weak as they work the ring off from Henry's hand, shaking and clumsy. He presses it between their two palms for a moment, then swallows it.

As the smoke fills the room, Coward doesn't fight the heavy black weight that's pooling in his lungs, his breath shallow and choked. His panic struggles somewhere in the distance, he's smothered with his face against Henry's neck and his hands in Henry's hands. The room is spinning around them. His heart is beating fast and painful, fluttering like the first time they met.

As the smoke fills the room. As the fog comes in off the Thames. As his eyes close, memory unfolds itself, diffuses like light caught in smoke, in fog, in vapour and every moment in time is shining all at once in this great net of stars.

Henry's nets wrapped around him. Henry's fingers meshing through his hair.


End file.
